A pair of notable local indie filmmakers are doing a
Kickstarter campaign to complete an unusual project.
click to enlarge Still from the trailer of a scene from "Inside Passage"
Inside Passage is an experimental documentary about producer Gab Cody’s real-life search for her Tlingit Native American foster siblings, whom she hasn’t seen since she was a small child in Alaska.
According to press materials, the feature-length film will blur the line between the “real” and the “designed.” While the core of the film is verite-style footage of the actual journey to Alaska, the finished product, as co-directed by Cody and Sam Turich, will include interviews both staged and informal, found and historical footage and more. (A press release about the filmmakers’ approach references such innovative recent documentaries as Sarah Polley’s
Stories We Tell and Joshua Oppenheimer’s
The Act of Killing.)
A novel element of
Inside Passage is its “pre-enactments” — fictional interludes in which the filmmakers explore what a reunion of Cody and her siblings might look like, question their own motives and more. Here’s a
trailer of one of them, and you can find more on the Kickstarter page. (The accompanying photo, featuring local actors, is a still from one pre-enactment.)
Funds are needed to send a two-person crew to Alaska in August. The Kickstarter campaign is for $21,000. As of today, with nine days left, about $16,000 was still needed.
Cody and Turich are perhaps best known for their award-winning feature-length comedy
Progression, and their comedy short “
Mombies,” which has screened at film festivals nationally, and on WQED-TV. They’ve also done work for the PBS Kids program
Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood.
Cody and Turich, who are spouses, are key figures in the local stage community as well. Both are actors, and in recent years Cody has written or co-written several plays staged by top local companies, including
Bricolage Productions, Quantum Theatre and
Point Park’s The REP.
The
Kickstarter campaign for Inside Passage ends July 31.